Lifelong learning at The Newberry Museum

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” – Henry Ford

As a volunteer at The Newberry Museum these past several months, I have conducted countless tours and a couple dozen lectures related to the current exhibit, “She Said…Yes!” I have talked and listened to people of all ages, from various backgrounds, from across the county, across the state and across the country. Hundreds of people, I daresay.

Of all our visitors, I am particularly impressed by how many are “senior adults” – gray-haired and a bit less-agile women and men who are well over the age of 60. Most are retirees: executives, teachers, medical professionals, homemakers, business owners, scientists, veterans and more. They have lived long, productive, interesting lives and they still have a lot of living to do. They are definitely not “old people.”

These past few months, I have observed that, whatever our ages, people seem to be naturally curious creatures. We have an innate desire to learn something, every day of our lives, even when our bodies don’t cooperate and our mental faculties falter. That observation seems to be especially true with the spry and active senior adults I guide through the exhibit and who attend my lectures.

Senior adults visit the museum to experience the exhibit and to learn. They listen as I describe the displays; they ask questions. They share stories with me and with their friends and families. They are attentive and engaging during the lectures; they offer unique perspective about what they see and hear, their eyes light up, they talk, they smile. They are the epitome of “lifelong learners.”

The Museum truly values our senior adult visitors and we will continue to offer programs and lectures that appeal to their interests in lifelong learning.

That said, because of the response from our visitors, the museum is delighted to extend the exhibit, “She Said…Yes!” an additional three weeks! September 3, 2022, is the last day to see the exhibit and to attend a lecture from our “A Closer Look” series.

We hope you will visit the Newberry Museum, and make plans to return again. Please come, see, enjoy, connect and learn.

Very late in life, when he was quite old and studying geometry, a Greek philosopher named Lacydes was asked: “Is it then a time for you to be learning now?”

To which the older man replied: “If it is not now, then when will it be?”

– Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers (3d century)